Girl, 6, Details Slayings of Gaza Brothers (AP/Toronto Star)
Six-year-old Lydia Abu Eitta, a first-grader, was getting a ride to school when masked gunmen stopped her car.
She ducked and the assailants riddled the car with gunfire, killing her three young cousins in an assassination attempt apparently aimed at the boys' father, an intelligence officer and Fatah loyalist who helped lead a crackdown on Hamas a decade ago.
She saw about a dozen gunmen with green uniforms and black masks.
See also Palestinian Gunmen Kill Hamas Judge in Gaza (AP/Jerusalem Post)
Palestinian gunmen on Wednesday opened fire outside a courthouse in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis, killing Bassam al-Fara, 30, a judge of the Islamic court and a Hamas member.

As Islamists Take Over Somalia, Ethiopia Prepares for War - Scott Baldauf (Christian Science Monitor)
A new front in the global struggle for Islamist rule is emerging in Africa and there are worrisome signs that battles in Somalia might soon engulf the entire Horn of Africa in a regional war.
As the Islamists take town after town in Somalia and march closer to its border, Ethiopia is gearing up for all-out war, while Eritrea, Djibouti, and Sudan are eyeing the conflict and taking sides.

Israel Bonds Raises $1.2 Billion in 2006 - Avi Krawitz (Jerusalem Post)
The Israel Bonds Organization raised $1.2 billion in 2006 after investments accelerated when U.S. support for Israel rallied during the war in Lebanon.
"We weren't able to stop at a billion because of the outpouring of support because of the war," said spokesman Rafi Rothstein.

14 American-Israeli Development Programs Funded - Amir Ben-Artzi (EE Times)
BIRD, the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation, has approved grants totaling $13 million to support 14 new joint U.S.-Israeli projects in life sciences, electronics and software, telecommunications, homeland security, and renewable energy.
BIRD has invested over $230 million in nearly 700 projects over 29 years of activity. These projects have generated direct and indirect sales of over $8 billion to date.

Move to Bring Genocide Case Against Ahmadinejad as Iran President Repeats Call to Wipe Out Israel - Robert Tait and Ed Pilkington
The outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, is backing a call for the president of Iran to be charged with inciting genocide because of his speeches advocating the destruction of the State of Israel.
Bolton will appear Thursday among a panel of diplomats and lawyers calling for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be prosecuted, convened by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
The call for legal action came as Ahmadinejad repeated his onslaught against Israel at an international gathering of Holocaust deniers in Tehran where he said the Israeli state would soon be wiped out.
(Guardian-UK)
See also Holocaust Deniers' Meeting Spurs European Leaders' Outrage - William J. Kole (AP/Los Angeles Times)

U.S. Condemns Holocaust Denial Conference
A statement released by the White House Tuesday said: "The United States condemns the conference on the Holocaust convoked by the Iranian regime on Monday in Tehran....The Iranian regime perversely seeks to call the historical fact of those atrocities into question and provide a platform for hatred. The gathering of Holocaust deniers in Tehran is an affront to the entire civilized world, as well as to the traditional Iranian values of tolerance and mutual respect."
(White House)

"Distant Threats" Push Israel to Boost Warplanes' Range - Yaakov Katz
Israel's air force plans to enhance its air-refueling capabilities, increasing the range of its warplanes as Iran emerges as an increasing threat. Air force Brig. Gen. Yohanan Loker has said the program would help Israel meet "emerging distant threats." "If you have fuel, you can reach distant targets, better utilize your assets, and carry larger amounts of weapons," Loker said. In 1981, eight F-16 fighters flew nearly 650 miles each way to bomb the Osirak reactor in Iraq, eliminating Saddam Hussein's nuclear program at the time. (USA Today)

Saudi Arabia Opposes U.S.-Iranian Dialogue - Helene Cooper
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia told U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney two weeks ago in Riyadh that if the U.S. pulls its troops out of Iraq, the Saudis might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq's Shiites. King Abdullah also expressed strong opposition to diplomatic talks between the U.S. and Iran. The Saudi warning reflects fears among America's Sunni Arab allies about Iran's rising influence in Iraq, coupled with Tehran's nuclear ambitions. The Saudis have argued strenuously against an American pullout from Iraq, citing fears that Iraq's minority Sunni Arab population would be massacred.
The Bush administration is working on a way to form a coalition of Sunni Arab nations and a moderate Shiite government in Iraq, along with the U.S. and Europe, to stand against "Iran, Syria, and the terrorists," a senior administration official said Tuesday.
(New York Times)

News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:

We Have Learned the Lessons of the Holocaust - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
Speaking at a memorial ceremony at the Grunwald deportation train station in Berlin on Tuesday, Prime Minister Olmert said:
"We have learned and memorized the lesson: the weak and defenseless are doomed. Doomed are they who do not believe those who threaten to eradicate them. Doomed are they who remain complacent and do not prepare themselves to thwart the danger. Doomed are they who entertain the false illusion that they could escape harm and that they could rely on the mercy of strangers."
(Prime Minister's Office)

Annan Hints Palestinians Shouldn't Be Given Right of Return to Israel - Shlomo Shamir
In his final address to the Security Council, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan hinted Tuesday that Palestinian refugees should not be granted the right to return to the State of Israel. Annan said, "The two-state solution - Israel and Palestine - must respect the rights of the Palestinian refugees, but only within the context of preserving the character of states in the region."
Annan also chastised supporters of the Palestinians at the UN for measures critical of Israel. "Some may feel satisfaction at repeatedly passing General Assembly resolutions or holding conferences that condemn Israel's behavior, but one should also ask whether such steps bring any tangible relief or benefit to the Palestinians." Annan asked if this had strengthened the belief "that this great organization is too one-sided to be allowed a significant role in the Middle East peace process."
"Even worse, some of the rhetoric used in connection with the issue implies a refusal to concede the very legitimacy of Israel's existence, let alone the validity of its security concerns," Annan said. "What was done to Jews and others by the Nazis remains an undeniable tragedy, unique in human history." (Ha'aretz)

Criminal Denial:
Iran's Posturing on the Holocaust Is an Affront to History and to Humanity - Editorial
As even embarrassed Iranians realize, the conference is a disgrace, a grotesque attempt to relativize, if not deny, a crime against humanity. The more thoughtful Palestinians have already understood that the refusal to acknowledge the wartime persecution of the Jews gives credibility to the assertion that critics of Israel are motivated by anti-Semitism. Iran's president simply proves the point. Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki has revealed the real intention: "If the official version of the Holocaust is thrown into doubt, then the identity and nature of Israel will be thrown into doubt." (Times-UK)

When Words Are Futile - Robert Rozett
My colleagues and I at Yad Vashem - The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Israel - can verify and recount the Holocaust in great detail, based on the 110,000 published titles and the 70 million pages of documentation in our collection, and the personal records of a sizable percentage of the individual Jews who were murdered. Calling the Holocaust into question can only be likened to questioning if the earth rotates around the sun, or if humans need to breathe to live. The writer is director of the Yad Vashem Libraries.
(Jerusalem Post)

Getting at the Truth - Charles Fried
To even mildly educated people, Ahmadinejad's conference is like having a conference about whether the world might be flat after all. The real victims of this minor latter-day outrage are the Iranian people and rational discourse everywhere. Ahmadinejad tells us that his pursuit of advanced nuclear capabilities is for peaceful purposes only: power generation, medical applications, and not as part of a weapons program. Why would a rational person put faith in any assurance from a man so contemptuous of truth or even think there is any point in negotiating with him? There is such a thing as truth; that is why Holocaust deniers are fools or liars.
The writer is a professor at Harvard Law School.
(Boston Globe)

Bad News Baker - Yoav Fromer
By incorporating Israel into five of its 79 recommendations, the Iraq Study Group's report has forced Israel into center stage in the Iraq debate. Considering Baker's problematic relationship with the Jewish state, most Israelis shouldn't have been surprised with the proposals. Any way you look at it, Baker-Hamilton spells bad news for Israel. Whether due to wishful thinking or selective memory, the proposal for an "unconditional calling and holding of meetings" in a Madrid-like style, between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel and the Syrians, disregards a fairly major point: At this point at time, Israelis simply don't have anyone to talk to.
Hamas' refusal to accept Israel's existence is not some bump in the road dealt with by parentheses. It's the heart of the problem. The democratically elected Hamas government is in charge - not the moderate Mahmoud Abbas - and, as long as that is the case, this premature call for negotiations would leave Israelis talking to a handful of people who lack a public mandate to implement potential agreements. And, if anyone believes that the Shia and Sunnis are blowing themselves up to free Palestine or avenge the Arab defeat of 1967, they are conveniently forgetting the fact that they had been at it well before Zionism ever came into being.
(New Republic)

It is possible to make fun of the conference of Holocaust deniers in Tehran. It is also possible to view this as yet another symptom of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that has afflicted the West in the face of rising Islamic extremism. The conference is another sign that anti-Israel sentiment has long since turned into open anti-Semitism.

The repeated calls for Israel's eradication that emanate from Iran - especially when accompanied by nuclear weapons, but even without them - should have generated an active and effective worldwide front. Instead, we are gradually seeing the problem become Israel's problem alone.

It is too early to say the world is remaining silent in the face of the threat to destroy Israel, but it is not too early to say that the world is apathetic and yawning.

Ahmadinejad does not recognize the 1967 borders - or any borders - for a Jewish state. He uses Holocaust denial to eradicate the moral basis for Israel's existence, and even says so openly.

To counter this, it is necessary to create a moral, diplomatic, political, and even military front - one that will be activist rather than sleepy and apologetic, and that will make the discussion of Israel's destruction unprofitable for the Iranians even before any discussion of the goals of the nuclear capabilities they are developing.

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations joins in inviting
leaders of the member organizations to a special symposium:

Bring Ahmadinejad to Justice for Incitement to Genocide!

Featuring important national and international legal scholars who will discuss the repeated threats by President Ahmadinejad of Iran in violation of the 1949 Genocide Convention. Among those who will address this timely and critical issue are:

Ambassador John Bolton, Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the UN
Amb. Dore Gold, Former Ambassador of Israel to the United Nations
Professor Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law School
MP Irwin Cotler, Former Minister of Justice of Canada
Amb. Meir Rosenne, Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States
Amb. Eytan Bentsur, Former Director General, Israel Foreign Ministry
MK Danny Naveh, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee
Professor Ruth Wedgewood, Johns Hopkins University
Martin Peretz, The New Republic

Thursday, December 14
10:00 am - 12:00 noon

New York County Lawyers' Association
14 Vesey Street,
(between Broadway and Church Street)
Lower Manhattan